Solstice
The light’s snagged,
caught in a door
at season’s slit.
A bear warns me
away from that maw.
The city is a dark den.
Shadows growling
spill onto the street.
They bound, determined.
So I turn and run
and trees,
trees brighten the horizon.
Lazarus
In the crypt we sit,
glasses beading,
fingers interlocked,
listening to the switchback
syncopation, its invitation
to heel up and dance
away the strive and strife,
the daily grime,
the mounded sheets.
A flugelhorn hails
the newborn, rouses
the silent passing on.
Tonight I am alive.
This club’s lit up
by voltage and jazz.
Thanking the Lord for
this raucous accord,
my heart’s a neon sign.
A chinese-malaysian in London, L Kiew works as an accountant. Her debut pamphlet The Unquiet came out with Offord Road Books (2019). She was a 2019/2020 London Library Emerging Writer.
The Kindling 